Drug money funneled back to police

When drug dealers get locked up, they can leave behind thousands of dollars in cash and narcotics.Though the unlawful merchandise gets destroyed, that money ends up helping law enforcement.

Mary KilpatrickStaff Writer

When drug dealers get locked up, they can leave behind thousands of dollars in cash and narcotics.Though the unlawful merchandise gets destroyed, that money ends up helping law enforcement.When a guilty verdict is rendered, the confiscated money gets rebranded as legal and routed into law enforcement and government bank accounts.“We have to prove that they are used as illegal assets,” Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said.The Lafourche Sheriff's Office seized about $410,600 in drug money in 2012 and got about $273,400 that year from guilty pleas and verdicts, Sheriff's Office spokesman Brennan Matherne said. The Lafourche District Attorney's Office and the Criminal Court Fund each received $26,100.About 60 percent of money that's deemed illegal from raids in the state goes to the sheriff's office or local police agency that participated. The district attorney's office and Criminal Court Fund each get 20 percent. Up to 90 percent from federal busts goes to the sheriff's office or local police agency with the rest split among federal agencies.The Terrebonne Sheriff's Office seized about $90,056 in drug money in 2012 but pocketed about $301,394 that year from guilty pleas and verdicts that included money confiscated in previous years, Terrebonne Sheriff's Office Maj. Sele Roddy said. This year the agency helped seize more than $1.3 million, much of it from June raids on suspected synthetic marijuana operations at convenience stores.